it’s called food prep

Yoga at 6:30
Work at 8:00
Lunch (all meals at regular times)
Haircut
Wings with coworkers

All the things I made up today:

12 hours of sleep
Lying in bed until the afternoon
A full hot breakfast
A mesmerizing movie on Netflix (Girl Walks Home Alone at Night)
A dozen banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
A full hot dinner
A clean kitchen floor
A clean batch of dishes
A bag packed for Southern Illinois

I don’t know what it is about me and the world. Breakfast at Tiffany’s called it the mean reds, but it’s not that. It’s not sad. It’s not fear. I wake up some mornings and nothing, no amount of obligation in the world is strong enough to pull me out of the bed. No voice in my mind is loud enough to stop me from canceling on all the world. Nothing means more to me than me in those moments. I’d like to redeem myself and say I feel guilty about it. I feel guilty for quitting on the world. I’m a quitter, like that old sock you pull out of the dryer that just won’t stay in place on your foot. Not “you’re a wizard, Harry” but, “you’re a quitter, Morales.” I don’t mean to be, and I’m not all the time. I try– like a lot. Like 75% of the time I’m 85% trying, but I have those 25% of days where the world has nothing to offer me. So I try 0%. It could be anything. A day of anything, but it’s nothing to me. I don’t know where I learned this habit. Surely from neither of my parents, who never had a day to quit in their lives. Well, who knows about my dad. I don’t know about my dad. Maybe I’m talking out of my ass. I call them mental health days. Just a day to think what I’m thinking and not be at the mercy of anyone or anything, but myself. At times, later when I’m back to trying, I think this makes me weak that I can’t grapple with the world. That I bow out of the duel. But at other times, I ask myself what really it is I think I’m turning my back on. If it were anything so important, surely I would stay. Surely I would engage. Surely I would try to make the world a better place. It’s quirky of me that the very world I am made of exhausts me so. That which I am, I don’t want to be at times. People think it’s them. They think I can’t do them, or don’t want them, and I don’t know how to tell them, have told them, really it’s nothing to do with you. It hurts that I inadvertently hurt them. That without fail, people get caught in the crosshairs between me and the world. Not what I intend. Not even a side interest. Something is just wired in my brain at this weird angle. I try. I really do try to tease out the issue, work out the kinks. The change doesn’t come. I always find myself back here, lying alone in the quiet oblivious of the swirling around me. My brain is a non-conformist– what else can I do but give in.